


Fundamentals

by lady_needless_litany



Category: Space Force (TV)
Genre: (i think), Canon Compliant, Character Study, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Mild Language, One Shot, Pre-Relationship, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24745492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_needless_litany/pseuds/lady_needless_litany
Summary: She's Captain Angela Ali, astronaut-in-training. Sort of.
Relationships: Angela Ali/Chan Kaifang
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33





	Fundamentals

**Author's Note:**

> Not going to lie, there's a lot of guesswork in this fic:  
> \- The book does not exist, although it does simulate some I found online. I also have no idea about astrobotany, so sorry.  
> \- Someone told me that fact about sleep, but idk if it's accurate  
> \- I think Americans call paracetamol 'Tylenol'???  
> \- Wikipedia is my main (*cough* only *cough*) source of info

Angela Ali awoke tired, disorientated and already aching. And not in a good way.

Her cheek was pressed against a book of middling thickness, entitled _Fundamentals of Evolutionary Biology in Plants_. According to Chan, it had been required reading in his second year of university and he stood by it as a good introduction to the topic. That aside, the position in which she'd fallen asleep, head on the table and shoulders oddly twisted, had left her with complaining muscles - as she raised her head, it actually hurt to move.

_Shit. What time is it?_

It took her a few seconds to properly focus on her watch, to realise that she was a good thirty minutes behind schedule. Once the penny dropped, however, she didn't dally, wincing at the screeching sound her chair made as it scraped across the floor.

Showering and dressing only took her a couple of minutes, accompanied by silent self-beration. Back when she was studying full-time, Angela had always hated pulling all-nighters; staying up until the early hours of the morning and then almost being late for work was arguably. She hadn't even finished the damn book.

Nonetheless, she clocked in with thirty seconds to spare; she was just thankful that her body was so used to functioning on a schedule that she hadn't overslept even more. Realistically, she was accustomed to functioning on far fewer hours of sleep than doctors' recommended, which was an unfortunate side-effect of living and working on a Space Force base. The fact that her neck and shoulders still hurt like hell, despite the Tylenol she'd swallowed as she left the house… well, she'd survive. She'd felt worse.

That was what she told herself, at least, as she stifled a yawn.

Except that was only the start of the day. There was a long way to go.

She did her best, sticking to her normal morning schedule, doing what she needed to do. Much of it was old hat, stuff that no longer required a lot of thought. In the back of her mind, though, the previous night's reading needled her. Some of it was clear, some of it murky; she'd struggled to hold her focus past midnight, meaning that the last few chapters were a blur in her memory. She'd made notes, thankfully, so it hadn't been a waste of time.

Of course, that was no guarantee that she would be able to understand them. Even if her notes on a given topic were impeccable, the concepts were complex and convoluted, demanding constant revision and clarification. The vocabulary alone was a learning curve.

One of the most frustrating things was that she _wasn't_ slow or stupid and she knew that, deep down. If nothing else, Dr. Chan certainly didn't believe in oversimplifying things, and she was keeping up with him. Just about.

No, the content wasn't a problem. The studying wasn't a problem. But the speed at which she was trying to learn it? That was a problem. With the best will in the world, few people could memorise a library overnight. And she was learning a lot of it from scratch, more or less, because it turned out that highschool science provided, at best, a shaky background.

But what choice did she have? She had no idea when Space Force would start their astronaut recruitment drive in earnest. It could be in next year, it could be next week. Either way, she had to be prepared.

Uncharacteristically, the one thing that she wasn't prepared for was her lunchtime rendezvous with Dr Chan. One minute, it seemed like ten o'clock; the next, it was quarter past one and she was fifteen minutes late for her lesson.

* * *

Dr Chan, thankfully, was always careful to keep his word, which meant that he hadn't given her up as a lost cause and left. Instead, he sat at his usual table, exactly where they always met, steadily chewing his way through a plate of salad. He did, though, spare her a glance as she arrived. "You look like shit, Ali."

"Thanks." Angela plonked herself down in the chair opposite him. The discomfort had gone, but the exhaustion certainly hadn't. "Late night. Studying."

"Sleep's more important," he said reprovingly, pushing a muffin across the table. He'd learnt that their lessons were far less stressful - for both of them - if they involved food. "People that regularly get less than seven hours of sleep are far more vulnerable to health issues, including high blood pressure and strokes."

She accepted the muffin gratefully, too tired to get defensive. "It wasn't intentional. I just lost track of time."

Chan clearly picked up on her mood and pressed onwards. "Should we start? I think we should talk about gravitropism today, since I guess that you're good with the evolutionary biology that you need to know."

"Yeah, okay. Gravitropism," she muttered, mostly to herself. "Gravitropism, gravitropism. Grav-ee-trope-ism."

At her repetition, he raised an eyebrow. "Sadly, repeating the word 'gravitropism' won't get you on a rocket."

"You never know." Angela exhaled loudly, then readjusted her pose to be more comfortable. "Okay, so I swear we talked about tropism at school."

"Well, you probably did. Just be prepared for it to get a hell of a lot more complicated."

His explanation was jargon-heavy - not his fault, she calculated, just a fact of dealing with something so specialised - and she found that, despite her best intentions, much of it became glorified background noise, a series of unfamiliar words and concepts slipping through her mind. With a concerted effort, she tuned back in.

"So, they've actually tested this on the ISS," she confirmed, when he reached a moment of pause. "Plants grow normally in space? 'Cause that doesn't sound logical."

"Well, not 'normally', no. There's a whole host of differences and we need to do a lot more research before we can even get close to being sure about most of the theories that we currently have. But yeah, gravitropism occurs in low-gravity environments."

"Why-" she broke off, frustrated. "Ugh, this is so _hard_."

"Well, yeah. It's astrobiology. People get degrees in this stuff. It's complicated."

"It wouldn't be half as bad if I could just focus. I'm letting myself get distracted too much."

His voice took on a gentler tone. "I know you might not expect to hear this from me, but cut yourself some slack. You're pushing yourself hard and you're doing well."

"It sure as hell doesn't feel like that. It feels like I'm banging my head against a brick wall. Except the wall is made of science books." She propped her chin on her hand, dejected.

"I'm serious, Ali. I had classmates at uni who struggled with things like this way more than you. And some of them have pHDs in, like, astrobotany and astrophysics now."

Angela continued to look at him, a little doubtful.

Sighing, he set his now-empty plate aside. "Maybe you just need to reframe this."

With a head tilt that conveyed her scepticism, she gestured for him to continue.

"It can be helpful to know why you're doing something, to remind yourself why it matters to you. For motivation, y'know?" He shrugged, at a bit of a loss himself. "Why do you want to be an astronaut?"

For a moment, the question genuinely stumped her.

"I guess," she started, somewhat tentative. It felt odd, saying something so personal to someone that she barely knew. "It's the kind of thing you dream about as a kid, right? And it's not often that you get the chance to fulfil childhood dreams."

Listening, Chan simply nodded.

"Besides," she added, perhaps emboldened by his attentiveness. "This is a once-in-a-life time opportunity. For a once-in-a-generation thing. I mean, it's the damn Moon."

"That's what I'm talking about," he said. Then, straight back to business, "Think you've got the energy to handle lithopanspermia now?"

She cracked a smile; she couldn't help it. "Remind me: why do I need to know this, specifically?"

"It's on the list of topics that Dr Mallory recommended covering."

_Wait, what?_

Her heart, quite suddenly, contracted; her stomach dropped. "You _talked to him_ about this?"

He looked a little flummoxed, as if confused by the fact that she would even ask the question. "Of course. There's no point in covering subjects that are never going to be relevant to you."

It was thoughtful, one part of her brain noted, that he was going out of his way to ensure they weren't wasting their time; a louder part, though, set alarm bells ringing. "So he knows that I want to be an astronaut?"

"Yeah." Chan's eyebrows drew together, suddenly concerned that he'd made a mistake. "Is that a problem?"

_Yes. No. Maybe._

"I guess it's a bit stupid, but it feels kind of… vulnerable. I really, really want this. I'm just not sure that I'm ready to hear other people's criticism about that just yet."

"Oh." A light of understanding dawned in his eyes. "That's not stupid at all."

She shook her head. "Anyway… it's not a problem. I'm going to have to apply at some point. That's why I'm studying for the fucking AAT."

She meant it, but he was clearly feeling a little remorseful. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything without checking with you," he said, genuinely. "And if it's any comfort, neither me or Mallory are looking down on you for this. Plus, I'm pretty sure he won't have told anyone else. He's not that kind of guy."

"I know." Angela steeled herself, taking a breath. "Now, what’s this gravitropism got to do with living on the Moon?"

**Author's Note:**

> I've got mixed feelings about parts of this show, but I thought that Ali and Chan's relationship was really cute! Hope I did their characters justice.


End file.
